


High Heat:  Part One

by light_source



Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, M/M, San Francisco, San Francisco Giants, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:57:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first twelve chapters of *High Heat* in one big piece, lightly edited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Heat:  Part One

1

 **May-September 2010**

Looks more like a linebacker than a baseball player, is what Lincecum thinks when Buster Posey, the Second Coming, gets called up from Fresno. The guy’s thighs are the size of an elephant’s. His ass is huge and square, and he has a neck-beard he doesn’t bother to shave. He has the pink cheeks and blue eyes of a boy scout; chews bubble gum; is married to a regulation-blonde Southern girl he’s been dating since high school. There are rumors, late-night drunken speculation, that he’s been juicing.

Lincecum remembers Posey vaguely from his time in Triple A, where Posey had a reputation for being a straight-edger and Lincecum remembers thinking someone needed to tie him down and pour a few down his throat. But that was awhile ago. Tim only pitched a few games in Fresno before getting called up, and since then it’s been a blur of awards and accolades; he hasn’t looked back. The pressure was pretty intense at first, but he’s gotten used to being called 'The Franchise.' He likes the look of his face on the banners at Third and King.

So Lincecum participates dutifully in the jokes and ass-slapping when Posey is introduced to the team in a cloud of dizzying hype. But he makes sure he’s standing in the back, next to the door, away from the cameras. He catches Barry Zito in an eye-roll and they share a smile. Yeah. Linebacker, Lincecum thinks, or Jim Harvey, the high-school wrestler whose idea of fun was smashing Lincecum’s head into his gym locker. A cross between those two and the picture of Jesus in his Catholic-school catechism book. _Buster Fucking Posey._ The name itself is ridiculous.

//

That spring, Posey’s dogged by media everywhere he goes, and he gets a lot of play at first base. Lincecum, who knows how players come and go, does his best to ignore Posey till midsummer, when the worst happens: the Giants trade Bengie Molina to Texas for a used-up reliever and a player to be named later. So yeah, Bengie’s not what he once was, he’s fat and slow and washed up, but Lincecum can’t believe they traded him. Lincecum cuts out early from Molina’s goodbye party when everyone’s still getting fucked up. He barely made it through watching Bengie clean out his locker earlier that day and he doesn’t trust himself. Bengie’s only been catching him two years but he still seems like the best parts of an older brother.

Lincecum keeps his head down, opens the second half of the season with a complete-game shutout of the Mets. But by August he’s falling apart, without his stuff for the first time in his young life. By the end of the month he’s 0 and 5. He feels lost out there on the mound. He can’t find his release point, his fastball is belt-high and wide, his breaking stuff isn’t.

And this is the problem with being The Franchise. All month long the Bay Area buzzes. Not just the sportswriters. Old ladies, venture capitalists, hairdressers, the guys selling garlic fries at the park - everyone’s agonizing over Lincecum’s slump. He stops taking his father’s calls and, after night games, he goes straight home and turns on the TV but doesn’t watch it. The whole team starts to drag.

In frustration, Bochy calls in the rotation minus Cain. For emphasis, the skipper takes a baseball bat to one of the plasma TVs in the training room.

That August, Tim stops listening to the radio or watching _SportsCenter_ , where he’s the story in a way he doesn’t want to be.

The problem is - Lincecum knows it but he can’t say it - the problem is Posey. Tim just fucking hates being caught by Captain America. The guy’s calling his games, critiquing his pitches, telling him how he should hit batters. Out on the mound, every time Lincecum waits for sign, he sees that hand flashing between those thunder thighs, and he can’t breathe. It’s bad memories, he knows: fear. And other things, things he doesn’t really want to think about.

In the clubhouse, he’s glad Buster doesn’t dress near him. In the dugout, he hangs with the starters, and he takes the bulkhead row on the plane. In the showers, where it’s hardest to avoid anyone, he keeps his eyes level and his mind elsewhere.

It’s not just that Posey’s now calling Lincecum’s games. In the month or so he’s been up from Fresno, the rookie’s already figured out how to hit major-league pitchers and he’s batting in all kinds of runs. So when Tim watches Buster peel off a two-run homer and trot the bases, he’s careful to remind himself, as the crowd is screaming: _the guy’s slow, he’s muscle-bound, look at him pant, backwoods Georgia donkey-fucker._

Lincecum considers himself immune to the country pokiness of baseball. He’s no farm boy; he’s from Seattle, the land of rain and grunge and airplane parts. He’s grown his hair long as a fuck-you to the doubters and good ole boys. He likes his image as a skateboarder, a stoner, a punk.

//

There’s not much privacy in baseball. So some days, instead of spending the whole game at the lip of the dugout with the other pitchers, Lincecum squats on the ledge above the bench, between the gum and the seeds. He has a good view from there, level with the surface of the field, where no one else can join him because no one else has his insane flexibility. It’s how he signals his teammates that he needs to be alone.

One day, Buster struts right up to Tim like he’s not even there and starts stripping off his catching gear, tossing it onto the bench, because he’s in the hole, batting fifth. He leans forward over the bench so they’re almost close enough to touch, his hands working at the buckles and velcro. It’s Cleveland, mid-August, sticky hot. Buster’s hair is wet with sweat and Lincecum can feel, can smell, the heat coming off him. When, abruptly, Buster looks up and meets his eyes, Tim’s surprised. Buster, who never has much to say, smiles at him, at first a little shyly, and then as though he’s up to something.

Lincecum isn’t about to let Buster get away with this. Keeping his expression blank, he spits a volley of sunflower hulls out the side of his mouth, pegging Buster on the chest. The rookie swears under his breath and moves off, shoving on his batting helmet.

But as he grabs his bat and starts up the stairs, Posey looks back over his shoulder and finds Tim’s eyes locked on his.

//

When the stink of his slump finally lifts in September, Lincecum isn’t sure why. He’s been working out more, running stadium stairs and lifting weights. But there’s more to it than that. He’s getting used to Buster. Taking sign from that hand between those legs has gotten easier. He’s starting to enjoy the rhythm of the ball thwacking into Buster’s glove, the way the guy lurks there behind the batter, popping up to snag pitches on those huge thighs like some kind of fucking Transformer.

\- What the fuck - says Sergio Romo, giving him a friendly shove, as they’re dressing after the game, Lincecum’s first win since July.  
\- You smokin, man? Whassup with that shit? Romo has a huge shit-eating grin on his face. The fact that Romo usually has a shit-eating grin on his face doesn’t make it any less welcome. It’s not just a win. Tim’s filthy stuff is back.  
\- Can’t tell ya why, says Tim - it’s just there.  
\- The fuck it is, says Wilson, from the corner next to Cy’s dog bed. He grabs Lincecum’s head in his tattooed arm and gives him a noogie. Lincecum knows better than to struggle, and Wilson releases him after only a perfunctory swipe of the knuckles.

It’s OK; in fact, it feels good. Everyone’s been avoiding him since July, and in the last three weeks he’s barely been touched.

//

 **November 1, 2010**

When the Giants finally win It All, Tim’s spent the final agonizing inning of Game 5 heads-together with Barry Zito on the dugout lip. After the last strike, when Buster’s ripped off his mask, the entire dugout vaults over the rail and hurtles onto the field.

On the mound, eighteen inches above the field, Buster lifts Brian Wilson into the air as though the big closer were a tiny cheerleader. Tim, watching, feels a stab - envy? - but it vanishes in the all the screaming, the jostling, the too-hard hugs. At one point Tim's teammates hoist him onto their shoulders, and he spikes the air with his index finger, his long hair flying, lights flashing, shutters clicking.

Buster’s not one of Tim’s lifters; he’s over on the edge of the crowd, talking to the press. Lincecum keeps Buster in the corner of his eye until they’re nearly ready to go into the clubhouse. Their eyes meet, and Buster stands waiting, clutching his mask and pads. When Tim slams into him, Buster lifts him clear. Tim has to fight the urge to put his legs around him.

 **2**

When the team piles in off the field, the visiting clubhouse is already draped with plastic and the cases of champagne and beer are at the ready. The guys grab themselves a bottle in each hand and start shooting champagne and beer all over each other and into their own throats. Torres’s got ski goggles to keep his contacts from getting fucked up, and a bunch of the guys’ve got Renteria in a headlock and they’re screaming _MVP! MVP_! Somebody’s chased Madison - the kid - into a corner and is making him snort champagne.

At first the gouts of champagne squirting everywhere seem kind of sour and sticky, but once his hair’s drenched, Lincecum gives himself over to being soaked. When someone pushes him over to the media backdrop and hands him the trophy and the cameras buzz to attention, he’s taken short; all he can think to say is that it’s really shiny. He hands it off to Wilson like a hot potato. Not Tim’s fault. He's still in game mode, not quite convinced this is real. They’ve all been fantasizing about this celebration, and he’s always imagined he’d want to get really fucked up, go insane. But he's tired, and the dry, fizzy champagne makes his nose hurt, so after a few swigs, he stops. He wants to remember it all, even if it’s awkward.

Besides, they’re still in Texas. Lincecum’s only regret about any of this is that they didn’t get the win at home. In San Francisco the fans’d be cutting loose in their team jerseys and panda hats, the air around the ballpark fragrant with dope smoke.

\- You got a minute? says a voice behind him, and then Tim’s shoulder’s turned around to face who’s talking - it’s Buster. He’s all business, eyeing Tim impassively.

\- Yeah, says Lincecum evenly.

Buster starts towards the visitors’ training room, away from the celebration. When Tim doesn’t move, Buster looks back, jerks his chin, and Tim follows. He’s not familiar with this clubhouse and he suspects a practical joke’s in the offing. Whenever a player does over-the-top well - a rookie hits a grand slam, or a shortstop fills in as a middle reliever - his teammates pie him in the face after the game, usually while he’s giving his post-game interview. It’s baseball’s way of keeping any player from getting too cocky. Tim sighs. He made a big contribution tonight and his teammates have probably decided he needs to be taken down a peg. He follows Buster through a connecting door into a small L-shaped utility room. Fuck this, he thinks, any minute, the guys’ll be in my face. He wishes, too late, he’d had a little more to drink.

The noise of the celebration is a blur behind them.

\- I gotta talk to you, says Buster.

He looks confused, embarrassed. Lincecum doesn’t care. He hates having to look up into Posey’s eyes; one good thing about their mound conferences is that Buster’s usually at eye level.

\- What? says Lincecum belligerently.

Since they’re just standing there, Buster staring at him, he suspects the pie-throwing must have misfired, the timing hasn’t worked, and that’s why Buster is acting so weird. But then Buster grabs him by the wrist. Lincecum braces himself and narrows his eyes.

\- We won because a' you, says Buster. - Shoot, Timmy, he continues earnestly, - you been lights-out since September.

Tim opens one eye. There’s no shaving-cream pie, no teammates. He and Buster are still alone in the half-dark.

\- What I mean is I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole, Buster continues. - This stuff, it’s all new to me. I’ve been around, but I never met anybody like you, not in the minors, not at Florida State. The guys told me to watch out. It’s San Francisco, for pity’s sake.

\- You’re right, says Lincecum. - You _have_ been an asshole.

Tim’s got both eyes open now, wide with disbelief. He wrests free, feints back towards the doorway, and spikes his middle finger in the air.

\- But thanks for the thought, he continues. - Means a lot to me, coming from a donkey-fucking country boy like you.

\- Oh, come on, Timmy, I didn’t mean it like that, says Buster, right on his heels.

Lincecum spins around, face contorted with rage, about to peel off another string of obscenities. But there’s something about the catcher’s face that stops him.

Without really thinking, Lincecum reaches up and pulls Buster toward him. He senses his teammate's indrawn breath as he covers Buster’s lips with his own and snakes his warm tongue into the catcher’s mouth. Tim fully expects the big rookie to push him away, spitting and swearing. So he’s amazed to find that Buster’s kissing him back, their tongues fighting as they taste each other, mouths hot and wet. As Lincecum feels Buster’s big hands roaming along his bare arms, under his champagne-sticky t-shirt, stroking his belly, his own breathing grows ragged. When he reaches down to stroke Buster’s hard-on through the fabric of his baseball pants, Buster moans softly, plunging his tongue more deeply into Lincecum’s mouth and grabbing his ass with both hands.

It feels good, incredibly good, so good that Tim breaks away from the kiss. They're eye-to-eye, their mouths agape.

Before the catcher can register what’s happening, Tim wrests himself free, ducks under Buster’s arm, slips back through the door and back out into the lights and noise. He doesn’t look back.

 **3**

 **February 2011**

Pitchers and catchers report early to spring training.

Buster’s hanging with Jeremy Affeldt behind the batting cage. He likes that Affeldt’s a born-again Christian cause it reminds him of Leesburg, where people go to church on Sunday and you know what to expect. Yeah, it’s great to be back, but Scottsdale’s weird. Too much Wilson in the clubhouse today for him, too much about beards and tattoos and some cable show they’re making about last season. He was relieved to get out and just whack fungoes. Now they’re watching the starters - _pathetic!_ \- run sprints between the bases. It’s already eighty-five and they're sweating.

\- We’re gonna have twins, Buster tells Affeldt. - In August.  
\- You stud, says Jeremy, smacking him hard on the back. -Dynasty, man. You gonna name one of ‘em Buster?  
\- You’re about the twelfth person that’s said that, says Buster. - What if they’re girls?  
\- No way, man, says Affeldt. - They’ll be boys, definitely. You’re gonna be a baseball dad like Cal Ripken.

Buster smiles, picturing himself.

Finished with their sprints, the starters plonk down in the outfield, heaving. Buster watches; Lincecum’s pouring his water bottle over his long hair, working it in with his hands, laughing at something Zeets’s saying. The water soaks into his jersey and merges with the dark sweat streaks on his back and under his arms.

Later, in the clubhouse, coming out of the shower, Buster has to step over Tim, who’s lounging on his side on the carpet, propped on his pitching arm, watching Zito play guitar.

\- Barry’s swooning me, says Tim playfully, reaching up to grab Buster’s ankle in mid-step.

Buster yanks his ankle free, shaking his head. - _Whatever_ , he thinks to himself as he dresses at his locker a few yards away.

The two pitchers lean close to each other, whispering, and Buster instinctively looks over, wondering if they’re talking about him. He’s impressed by how broad Tim’s shoulders look, how steep the slope is between his trapezoids and deltoids and his narrow waist. The press calls him 'Tiny Tim,' but Buster knows better. He’s seen him naked in the showers. That jersey he wears, so loose-fitting he kind of swims around in it, is how he makes batters think he’s a twink. And then he hits them with a pitch with so much speed and movement that they can’t even see it. Now Lincecum’s leaning back, Zito’s laughing, and Tim’s powerful shoulders flex beneath the his beat-up hoodie. His velocity’s up, Buster’s heard. Musta went and did some serious lifting in the off-season.

Over the winter, Buster’d done some thinking about Timmy making that pass at him. After a while, though, he’d decided it was nothing. Tim was drunk; they’d just won the World Series. Heck, there was probably all kinds of weird stuff happening around the clubhouse that night. No point in making a big deal about it.

Now he’s just glad to be back behind the plate calling pitches.

The day he and Tim are scheduled in the bullpen, he arrives while Lincecum’s still lying face up on the grass stretching, arms behind him flat, the rest of his body pulling away. It’s unnatural, the way he stretches. Tim’s listening to his iPod, singing to himself while he spreads his legs into what’s nearly a split. Back straight, he touches his chest to the grass and grabs his feet.

\- Hey, says Tim, pulling out an earbud.  
\- What’s playing? asks Buster.  
\- Marvin Gaye. Are you good to go?

Tim jumps up easily, brushes grass off his pants, and grabs his glove. Buster mostly listens to country, and Timmy’s got weird taste in music - what kind of name is ‘gay’ for a band? - so he lets the subject of music drop.

Once they start, the rhythm does set up as though they’re working to music. Catching is fun when there’s no batter, thinks Buster, blocking a breaking ball in the dirt. Righetti’s right about the source of Tim’s increased velocity; over the winter he’s put on about fifteen pounds of muscle. He’s lost that skinny teenager look; now he’s starting to look more like an athlete, those shoulders and glutes making his two-seamer blaze. He’s also got a new pitch, a good hard slider that’ll be useful against the two or three batters that’ve figured out how to hit his fastball.

-Geez, Timmy, I’m not psychic, says Buster, scrambling to snag a pitch that’s high and outside.  
-Aw, fuck, sorry, says Lincecum.

As they practice, Buster wonders what's different. Nothing’s changed. But Tim’s pitching. The seven-foot stride, the way it nearly knocks him off the mound. The long hair flying. The way Tim’s left eye stays fixed on Buster over his shoulder as he throws. As he’s putting down sign, watching Lincecum focus hard on the fingers he’s flashing between his legs, Buster finds himself wondering it’d feel like to take the curve of that ass in his hands again.

//

For spring training, some of the guys rent condos in a complex off Camelback where the owner keeps the security tight. The older players, the married ones, want to do their laundry or carry groceries in from the parking lot without being mobbed by fans. Buster likes that his one-bedroom’s right down the hall from the gym.

He usually sleeps hard, but tonight he’s roused at two-thirty by the angry voices of a couple arguing in the courtyard below his window, so loud that even the air-conditioner doesn’t drown them out. He sighs, kicks off the covers, and puts on a pair of baseball shorts and running shoes. A couple of miles on the treadmill, he’s learned, tires him out enough so he can get back to sleep.

When Buster lets himself into the gym with his passcard, the lights are already on. Lincecum's on one of the treadmills, the incline and the speed jacked up pretty high. Lincecum’s facing away from him and his iPod's cranking out something so loud he’s not even aware that Buster’s there. Buster rubs his eyes and steps onto the treadmill next to Tim’s, punching in thirty minutes. As Buster’s machine’s belt begins to move, Lincecum finally glances over at him. He presses _stop_ and pulls out an earbud.

\- Can’t sleep? He and Buster have run into each other here before.  
\- Got woken up, says Buster.  
\- Me neither, says Tim.

Buster’s machine’s now got him running briskly; Tim cues something up on his iPod and resumes his workout, and for awhile they’re running hard together, facing the darkened full-length windows which give out on the complex’s swimming pool, lit up bright blue, outside. Buster, still sleepy, kind of enjoys the strange feeling of running in the middle of the night. Lincecum’s doing intervals, so every five minutes or so he’s running so hard Buster can feel drops of sweat flying off him.

Eventually Lincecum’s completely soaked. He steps off the treadmill, pulls his shirt off, swigs half a bottle of water and towels himself. When Tim uses his hands to slick back his long dark hair, Buster hits _stop_  on his own machine. It’s been twenty-eight minutes; close enough. He’s sweating too - he can feel a rivulet running down his spine and into his shorts - but he feels good, relaxed and loose and ready for bed.

Lincecum sits down on one of the lifting benches, wraps his towel around his neck and starts putting his stuff back into his gym bag. He’s probing around his left kneecap with his fingers.  
\- Hurt?  
\- No big, says Tim. Probably need to stretch my quads more. It’s clicking on the right. I supinate, my gait’s kind of fucked up.

Buster sits down next to him, feeling awkward. What's the etiquette for late-night exercise sessions; is he expected to stick around for jock talk, or can he just crawl back to bed? Lincecum’s cheeks are flushed, and as he pulls his hair up off his sweaty neck, Buster notices he’s got some kind of black Chinese tattoo where his neck meets his shoulders.

\- What’s with the tat? asks Buster.  
\- It’s Japanese, says Lincecum. The character for ‘man.’ All the guys in my family have it.  
When Buster leans over to get a closer look, he notices that Lincecum’s looking at him with an expression of frank curiosity. He’s smiling a little.

\- It’s OK, says Lincecum.  
\- What?

Buster’s only ever done this with girls, but turns out it’s easy, so easy, to take Tim’s face in his hands, his thumbs stroking the ace’s hair back behind his ears, and lean in to kiss him. The kiss is tentative, like his first kiss in middle school, when his girlfriend had braces and he had to be extra-gentle. Tim’s lips are soft and salty from his workout, his skin's cool, and Buster feels his lips curve into a smile.

Buster pulls back.

\- I can’t believe this, says Buster. Tim’s still just sitting there, his hands gripping the bench, and he’s still smiling.

\- Man up, dude, says Lincecum. - Welcome to real life.

And then he flashes Buster a huge, slow grin, and Buster feels like he’s falling down an elevator shaft.

 **4**

This is what it’s like to be drunk, thinks Buster as he clicks the door open and Lincecum, his towel around his neck, steps in front of him and stops inside the door. The big catcher's legs are wobbling and his skin’s burning; good thing the entryway’s dimly lit, cause he’s blushing like crazy and he has a massive boner. Lincecum’s standing there facing him, with his hands on his hips. He's still got that huge grin on his face.

Lincecum’s pumped from his exercise; he must have done some lifting in there too. Looking at the broad line of Tim’s shoulders, the curves of those hard pitching muscles, Buster feels like he's been punched.

\- Oh my God, Timmy, says Buster, pulling him in and covering Lincecum’s mouth with his own.

The ace’s skin is salty with sweat, and his mouth tastes like metal, like grass, like summer. Tim’s tongue is a darting snake in Buster’s mouth and Buster finds himself seeking, following, that warm, wet sensation. Tim moans a little, his breath escaping into Buster’s mouth, and Buster feels his hard cock straining against his tight shorts.

The pitcher’s still shirtless, his skin slick with sweat from his workout. Buster runs his hands over his hard belly and his pecs. Tim’s nipples harden under his thumbs, and Tim shudders. He breaks the kiss and pulls back, his mouth half-open and his eyes half-closed, and leans his head back, breathing hard.

Tim's body feels wiry and firm under Buster’s hands, and Buster buries his face in Lincecum’s skin, sucking in breath after breath of his fragrant skin, the smell of sweat and effort and men. When he takes Tim’s high, firm ass in both hands and squeezes hard, the ace cries out, grinding against him so that Buster can feel Tim’s hard-on rubbing against his own. Tim’s glove hand slides down to stroke Buster’s erection, his fingers tickling rather than stroking as they get towards the sensitive head, leaving Posey breathless.

\- Where’s your shower, says Lincecum, in Buster’s ear. - I’m pretty vile from my workout.

Buster groans. It’s like someone’s slammed on the brakes and he’s at terminal velocity, hurtling through the windshield. But he’s nothing if not polite, so he leads Lincecum down the dimly lit hall towards the bathroom - and then stops.

\- Wait, Buster says. - I don’t care. Now.

Tim reaches up with one hand and strokes Buster’s neck, his hand on Buster’s jaw, thumb on his temple. To Buster, he feel of his roughened fingertips is deeply strange - and deeply arousing.

They leave their shorts in the hallway. The bedroom’s only a few steps away, and they collapse onto the unmade bed, Tim on his back.

The courtyard lighting streaming through Buster’s bedroom window illuminates the contours of Lincecum’s body. Buster’s eyes and hands take in his slim hips and curvaceous ass, his broad shoulders, his flowing dark hair. Tim looks up at Buster, arches his back and strokes himself, his dark eyes narrowed with desire.

Buster’s hand joins Tim’s, and then he leans over and takes Timmy’s balls in his mouth, one at a time, breathing in his musky scent, feeling them tighten in his mouth. The ace is writhing with pleasure, both hands in Buster’s hair. Buster licks the shaft of his cock and takes the head in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the frenulum until Lincecum moans, and then he starts sucking, a rhythm like a slow blues line, starting and stopping when he feels Lincecum’s cock swell up to its full length and he tastes the saltiness of Tim’s pre-come.

Lincecum pulls Buster towards him so that he can get his hand on Buster’s erect cock, and as Buster gets him closer, closer, he matches the irregular rhythm of Buster’s mouth with his own hand, teasing, withholding, pleasuring in concert with him.

When Buster can’t hold out any longer, he screams and his cock explodes in Lincecum’s hand. When Lincecum sees the expression on his face, still working over his cock, Tim can’t help but come, shooting straight into Buster’s mouth.

 **5**

When Buster straightens up, lays himself back, and sinks his head into one of the pillows, the clock’s red eye says 4:52. His whole body is buzzing in the sweet aftermath of his orgasm. Tim’s on his side, waiting, his long hair a curtain of black in the dim light. As Buster nestles into the sheets, Tim leans over, circles an arm around him and kisses the catcher softly and slowly on the mouth. Buster stirs under his touch, murmuring something Tim can’t quite hear.

They’re silent for awhile, just soaking it in.

Lincecum props his head on his elbow and raises his eyebrows at Posey, who’s staring at the ceiling.

\- First time?

\- With a _guy,_ yeah, says Buster. He can’t believe he’s embarrassed to say this.

Lincecum sits up and stretches his arms above his head, yawning. His feral teeth are white in the darkness, and the sight of his broad bare shoulders, where Buster’s used to seeing his wife’s petite frame, is startling. In the half-light, Tim’s still smiling.

\- Buster Fucking Posey, he says. - Where’d you learn to give head?

There’s a long pause while Buster considers how he wants to answer this question.

\- Well, it’s not rocket science, says Buster. - A person can use their imagination.

Tim seizes Posey’s shoulders suddenly with both hands and rolls right over him, tumbling off the bed onto the carpet, laughing, the skin crinkling around his eyes. It’s not mean-spirited laughter, Buster knows, but he still doesn’t see what’s so funny.

After a while, Tim rubs his eyes, smooths back his messy hair, and rises easily to his feet. One hand on the doorframe, he looks back at Buster splayed out in the tangled sheets. And then he’s gone, so quietly that Buster doesn’t even hear the front door click.

//

When his alarm buzzes him awake at seven-thirty, Buster sits up and clutches his head in his hands, as effing hung over as if he’d been drunk. When a hot shower doesn’t clear his head, he does what he usually does when he’s in trouble: he falls back on discipline. He strips the bed, eats breakfast, drives to the ballpark, and suits up calmly as though nothing’s changed. Because, he tells himself, it hasn’t.

//

\- You’re over at the minor league park today, Tiger, says Wilson, swatting Tim on the ass as they finish dressing. - Throwing BP. _Teach_ those youngsters how to hit major-league heat.

\- More like give the coaches reasons to weed ‘em out, says Tim. - I hate all those guys with clipboards. Guys aren’t statistics.

Lincecum sighs. He actually likes the minor-league complex, with its three connecting fields; it reminds him of college. It’s smack in the middle of a municipal park, so beyond the chain-link fences, tennis foursomes come and go, old Italian guys play bocce, and joggers mix in with a few hardcore fans and the minor-league moms whose families host the youngsters at spring training.

Tim’s just gotten into his car in the players’ parking lot when Zito pulls in to the spot next to him and slides gracefully out the door, juggling a Starbucks latte, an iPod, and a gym bag. Lincecum rolls down his window and Zito comes over, puts down his stuff, and rests his elbows on the window ledge, eyes nearly level with Tim’s.

\- Where’re you off to? asks Barry.

\- Rags has me throwing BP over at the minor-league park, and then I’m there for the one o’clock game, says Tim. His hands are on the steering wheel.

\- We’re on tonight with Pat and Nate and I think Nate’s girlfriend - eight-thirty or so, says Zito.

Tim says nothing, but squints up at Barry, whose sunglasses conceal his dark eyes.

\- I missed you, you fuck, says the left-hander.

He strokes the side of Tim’s cheek with his index finger, and then picks up his gym bag and walks toward the clubhouse.

 **6**

Tim and Barry are at opposite ends of the table, and the restaurant’s so noisy that Tim’s given up trying to actually listen to Nate’s story about proposing to his girlfriend Kate. She's smiling broadly as he tells it; she's slender and blonde and has very white teeth, has Kate. She keeps finding reasons to put her left hand on the table to show off her rock.

Zito’s lounging comfortably in the crook of the banquette with a ghost of a smile on his face. There was a long wait for their table and it’s getting late. He’s wearing 501's, a sea-green polo shirt, and ten-year old leather Rainbows that have taken on the shape of his beautifully arched feet. He got some sun today and there are fine lines around his eyes; his silky dark hair curls around his collar. He looks like he smells like clean laundry.

Across the table, which is cluttered with platters of Indian food they’ve been sharing, Barry catches Tim’s eye and points at his Rolex.

\- I’m the designated driver, if you can believe that shit, says Timmy to the table. That’s why he’s only had one beer, and that was at the bar before dinner. - Seven-thirty call tomorrow morning. Rags said something about the heat index.

\- You poor thing, says Burrell. He leans back, laces his fingers behind his head and grins. - I’ll be dreaming about you while I'm sleeping in.

Tim gives him the finger.

Zito hands the signed check to the waiter and puts his folded napkin on the table next to his plate. He rises and leans gracefully across the table, takes Kate’s hand and kisses it with elaborate courtesy. She smiles up at him through her mascara.

\- Congratulations, Zito says, crinkling his eyes at her. - Seven years of waiting for something you love is a long time. It’s like a fairy tale.

\- Isn’t there something about it in the Bible? says Nate. He’s enjoying playing the role of the prince. - Didn’t Jacob wait seven years for Rachel?

At the far end of the table, Burrell rolls his eyes.

//

Zito’s rented a Spanish-style villa in the hills above Scottsdale, at the end of twisting road covered with red dust where his nearest neighbors are coyotes and lizards. At the automated gate, Tim punches in the code and winds slowly up the driveway, transmission whining, to the cobblestone turnaround. There he pulls up on the handbrake but doesn’t kill the engine. No sidewalks or streetlights out here; what light there is comes from the rising quarter moon and a scattering of stars in the middle sky.

Zito unsnaps his seatbelt. He turns, and with his left hand, reaches over to touch Tim’s neck. Lincecum flinches a little, but as Zito gently strokes the edge of Tim’s jaw with his thumb, he closes his eyes and leans into Barry’s touch as Barry weaves his fingers into his hair. He tips his head back and lets out a long breath.

Lincecum opens his eyes halfway and, without moving his head, looks sidelong at Zito. He smiles, a little at first, and the smile becomes a grin. He unsnaps his own seatbelt and pulls the keys from the ignition.

//

In 2007, Zito and Lincecum had both landed in San Francisco. The Giants had just given Zito the biggest contract in major-league history, $126 million for seven years. In May, Tim was called up from the minors as the organization’s top pitching prospect.

To that point, Barry’s life had looked effortless and perfect. He’d been a college star at USC, pitched the A's repeatedly to victory with his unhittable curveball, won a Cy Young. He’d even done some edgy modeling stuff in the off-season. He was eccentric, meditating in the outfield and traveling with a stuffed bear, but as long as he was pitching well, who cared? In the off-season he moved to LA, where the paparazzi had bigger celebrities to chase, partly to escape being the Bay Area’s most eligible bachelor. Fans at AT&T still showed up with orange-and-black signs saying _Marry Me Barry?_

Tim was different. Skinny and haunted-looking, wearing a beanie and a hoodie, he was sometimes mistaken for a bat-boy. That year, the Giants’ PR department had to run ads with his photograph overlaid with “Baby Face/Giant Heart: Tim is a Gamer.” Everyone pretty much agreed:  he got a lot of strikeouts, but his delivery was weird and violent; he was a freak whose arm would break down. When Timmy pitched, the signs at away games said things like _Fix Your Teeth_ and _Hippy Trash_.

//

Contents of Barry’s night-stand drawer: a tube of Astroglide, a box of Trojans, a weather radio, and a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses. Tim remembers there should also be a bottle of Advil and a tube of Carmex rolling around in the back there somewhere.

Tim uses his long fingers to fish out the Carmex and squeezes some onto his lips. After winter in Seattle, Phoenix, the desert, makes his skin feel like it’s about to peel off. He lets himself out the sliding door onto the patio and follows the wet footprints over to the pool’s overflow edge, where Barry’s lying on his back on the grass verge, hands behind his head. He sits down and stretches out beside him.

\- You smell like a eucalyptus tree, says Barry.

Tim props himself on his side and reaches over to put his hand on Barry’s face, stroking the clean-shaven skin that smells faintly of woodfern and Indian spices from their evening at the restaurant. He leans in, tips his nose, and kisses Barry, softly at first. Then there’s more heat, as Barry arches up a little, their tongues entwining.

 **7**

Wait a minute.

What the fuck is Tim doing here?

It’s been seventeen months. Seventeen months of misery and longing and forcing himself to move forward. Tim knows how long it's been like a reformed drunk knows the date when he put the plug in the jug.

August and September of that year had been brutal for reasons that'd had nothing to do with his ERA, his WHIP, or his win/loss record. Because Barry’s and his relationship had been secret, when it ended they’d had to get up every day and act like nothing had changed.

Long-toss together, shower together, take batting practice together. They’d had to keep up the bro hugs, the fist bumps, the butt slaps; they continued to spend games sitting arms and thighs jammed together in the dugout.

The tabloid stories about Barry’s exploits hadn't fazed him, but having to touch him, see him naked, being so close he could smell him - this made Tim crazy. After games he found reasons to loiter around till most of the guys had left. Then he’d take a long, excruciatingly hot shower. It was the only thing that soothed the itch he couldn’t scratch.

That September, Tim had been secretly glad the Giants hadn't made the playoffs.

//

What the fuck Tim’s doing here is this: he’s sliding one hand under Barry’s polo shirt and stroking his belly, which makes Barry moan softly and pull Tim in closer so that he can kiss him more deeply. Zito has his hands in Tim’s hair, around his neck, as though he wants to hurt him. The kissing that began so gently has become frantic, even savage, their tongues battling, tasting.

Then Tim’s hand is tracing the line of hair that leads from Barry’s navel downward, slipping beneath the fly of his jeans and the elastic of his boxer briefs.

Zito breaks the kiss and sits up abruptly, breathing hard. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve. The sound of the water lapping over the edge of the pool is the only calm thing Tim can focus on as they sit there in the dark, on the grass.

Barry takes Tim's pitching hand by the wrist and slowly brings it up to his mouth. He takes a deep breath, as though he’s soaking in Tim’s essence, and then kisses the inside, the palm of Tim’s hand, gently moving his mouth down to the inside of Tim’s wrist, his warm, soft lips making the ace’s skin prickle.

\- What is it about you, says Barry, not looking up. - That I can’t -

Neither of them wants to say what needs to be said next.

 **8**

\- Winter in LA’s like summer everywhere else, says Barry. - I couldn’t deal with snow.

Barry’s seen snow before, on ski trips.

\- If it snowed, you wouldn’t be able to get up your driveway in LA, says Tim. - Or down it. You’d be marooned.

Tim thinks about the blue-gray skies of Seattle in December, the sweet, dark smell of coffee drifting into the air around the corner from his place, the blues and greens of Christmas lights refracted in the rain-wet sidewalks. His condo’s got a north-facing balcony that he’s furnished with a single chair; it’s always cool and wet out there. On winter nights, he likes to watch the city lights glitter off and on through the cloud cover.

They’re lying there, bedclothes tangled around them. Most of the pillows are on the floor.

One of Tim’s arms is folded back behind his head. He’s stretched out on the covers, legs crossed at the ankles. His skin’s flushed, and sweat glistens on his bare chest, his neck, at his temples. Barry sits, propped up against a pillow, the sheets pulled up over one bent knee, his other leg stretched out straight. His hair is impeccably tousled, his head tilted back against the headboard, his eyes half-shut.

\- I don’t believe it, says Barry.

\- What?

\- How different you are.

There's too long a pause.

\- What did you expect? asks Tim.

Barry sits up and pushes away the covers. He rolls over and stretches out on his side next to Tim, and nestles his head into the crook of Tim’s shoulder.  Barry slips his arm around him, and with one hand gently traces the lines of Tim’s belly and his chest, the muscles of his pitching arm. Tim closes his eyes.

He turns his head and buries his nose in Barry’s hair. It smells faintly of coconut. Tim flashes back to his Marina apartment two years before: Zito’s bottle of shampoo on the shower floor, Barry’s rugby shirts in Tim’s bottom-left drawer, his bottles of San Pellegrino water crowding the cans of Red Bull in the fridge.

What that time felt like - his desperation, Barry’s detachment - comes flooding back.

\- God, you have a huge nose, says Barry. - I never noticed. It’s pretty ugly.  
\- Taxi-door ears, too, says Tim. - I barely made it through childhood. And I think my nose might be getting bigger.  
\- Like the rest of you, says Barry.  
\- Maybe, says Tim. - Maybe you just need new glasses.

Tim flips onto his stomach, rudely dislodging Zito’s head, rolls the remaining pillow into a bolster and stuffs it underneath his chest.

Zito reaches over and takes the edge of Tim’s face in his right hand.

\- And you’ve got quite the lantern jaw going there, young man, he says. - Your flesh is catching up with your bones.

He hates it when Zito calls him 'young man.'

\- We can’t all be the perfection that is Barry Zito, says Tim.

Barry leans back and bends one arm behind his head. He sighs.

Tim does something that surprises them both. Without warning, wordlessly, he rises up, seizes Barry’s shoulders, locks a knee around his lover’s legs and rolls both of them over twice. When they stop moving, Zito’s shoulders are at the edge of the bed, his head suspended above the floor. Tim’s straddling him, thighs braced, arms stiff, his dark eyes huge. His long hair hangs forward, partly shrouding his face, which is contorted with emotion.

\- We’re not doing this, right? says Tim. - Tell me about how we’re not doing this.

Zito’s silent. He’s hard to fight with.

\- Why are you always the one who calls the shots? Tim continues, his voice rising. - Who made those rules? _Fuck you._

With a single motion, Tim hikes Zito back onto the bed and collapses onto him, crushing his mouth with a kiss that smothers breath, forcing Barry’s head back until the two of them are straining, wrestling, against each other. Tim’s hands are all over his body, and he’s moaning, though Zito can’t figure out whether it’s from pleasure or from pain.

After a time, Zito breaks the kiss. It takes nearly all his upper-body strength to hold Tim off him, even for a moment.

He sees Tim’s agonized face above him, as he’s felt Tim’s hands roaming over his skin and heard him crying out. And Barry gives himself up, and lets Tim pin him to the bed with his body and his tongue.

 **9**

 **Spring 2007**

San Francisco’s built like a roller-coaster, with buildings the color of Necco wafers tumbling down the absurdly steep hills, and streets careening off in every direction but square. Market Street, not too far from the ballpark, is a circus of junkies and hustlers where even the runaways look like porn-movie extras. The yuppie lofts Tim’s been looking at in Dogpatch are too expensive, and the railroad flats in Potrero Hill are dark and smell like old plumbing.

He’s looked at twelve places, and he’s sick of driving around the block four or five times waiting for a parking space to open up that's big enough for his F-150.

It’s taken awhile, but Tim’s finally learned which neighborhoods are sunny and which ones are always fogged in. He knows where to get a dime bag or an empanada; that it’s easier to take the N-Judah to the Park than to drive there; what 'BDSM' means. He now knows not to call it 'Frisco,' but 'The City'; that the Presidio’s a good place for long-toss; that he’ll pretty much always need a jacket.

I need a car, not a truck, Tim thinks to himself, and a place to live. And I need a better sense, if I’m gonna stay here, of which way is Market.

//

In Fresno, the front office had put him up with three teammates in an aging tract house just east of Highway 99. By April it was already so hot that the lawn was turning brown, and the stucco siding was splashed red with dirt from the empty flower beds. In the mornings the front seat of his truck would be almost too hot to touch, so he’d roll down the windows on the way to the ballpark, and take deep breaths, sucking in the smell of oleander and fast food cooking and diesel from the freeway.

The guys, Chase and Ricky and Jovan, had all been kicking around the minors for awhile, San Jose and Richmond and Augusta, and Ricky had played winter ball in the DR. All three were used to guys getting called up or sent down, and they’d all developed the don’t-really-care attitude that allows people to survive in a situation where most of them won’t make it.

One evening, when they were drinking beers out on the concrete-slab patio, Chase’d told Tim this was probably his last year if he didn’t get called up. His girlfriend’s father had a Chrysler dealership outside St. Louis, he said, and the job and the girl wouldn’t wait forever.

When Tim got the call from the Giants’ front office, the guys’d given him one-armed bro hugs, slapped him on the head, and cracked open a six-pack of Molson.

Pretty soon, though, they’d drifted back to their game of Grand Theft Auto.

//

The ball club's promoting the idea of 'The Two Barrys.' Barry Zito, whom the Giants recently lured away from Oakland with the biggest contract in major-league history, dresses in the clubhouse next to Barry Bonds.  Bonds is notorious for a lot of things, but in the clubhouse he's hated for walling off his locker space with a personal leather recliner and a large-screen TV. Bonds is just what Tim expected - a showboating asshole to be appeased and avoided.

Zito comes across as standard-issue tall-dark-and-handsome, the kind of guy who’s never been turned down by a girl in his life. On the other hand, he’s quirky. There’s a guitar hanging next to his locker, and he burns incense before his starts. When Zito talks to people, Tim notices, he focuses on them intently, as though there’s no one else in the room.

Tim’s done the math on Zito: after taxes, a million bucks a month for seven years.

Tim’s not exactly impoverished himself. He got a hefty signing bonus, but his Dad made sure it went straight into things like mutual funds and annuities and paying off his college parking tickets. So since college, Tim’s been living pretty much the same, eating at In-N-Out, sleeping on his friends’ couches, driving a ten-year-old Ford with a muffler that’s held up by a wire coat-hanger.

As he watches the two Barrys horse around the clubhouse in their matching t-shirts that say _Don’t Ask Me, Ask Barry_ , Tim wonders what it’s like to be a guy who’s made it.

//

The first thing Barry Zito notices about Tim is his hair. It’s coal-black and coarse, matted under his cap, the ends poking out unevenly. What does he cut it with - nail scissors? The kid, he really is just a big kid, looks like he’s naturally dark-skinned - Latino? Asian? - but he’s pale and sallow as if he’s spent his life playing video games in his mom’s basement. He reminds Zito of himself as a high-school freshman, awkward, before the rest of his body caught up with his bones.

\- His college nickname was ‘Scum,’ says Sergio Romo, laughing. - From his last name. No way! There’s no way I could make this shit up!

The nickname fits. There’s something a little sinister about how Lincecum carries himself - watchful, quiet. He always wears three or four layers and long sleeves - maybe the little fucker’s hiding tracks.

He probably doesn't realize, thinks Barry, that he looks more like a Castro hooker than the baseball player he supposedly is.

And supposedly he is. In college, Zito’s heard, Tim tore up the PAC-10. But for the first few years, major-league front offices kept drafting him low and late. The Mariners, Lincecum’s hometown club, passed on him repeatedly. The Giants’ legendary scout Dick Tidrow kept his interest under wraps. They took him tenth overall, but Lincecum was cheap, even with a signing bonus.

Baseball players are an odd bunch. Some guys have played under three or four different names and grew up in shacks with dirt floors. Some guys would probably be gang-bangers or meth cooks if they weren’t playing. There’s Japanese guys who’ve had to learn to stop bowing to the coaches, and Dutch guys who’ve taken up baseball as an exotic sport. Every once in a while there’s an Orel Hersheiser or a Sandy Koufax, someone who comes sideways into baseball from accounting or a job at the Hormel plant.

Lincecum, Zito reflects, is the first skateboard punk he’s seen get called up.

Right now Barry’s got more important things to think about; there’s a lot happening on Planet Zito. This weekend _Esquire’_ s doing a photo shoot of him at his place in the Hollywood Hills, which he’s had redecorated to celebrate the decade of his birth with bowl chairs, shag carpets, and chrome lamps. He’s hung his new Giants jersey as artwork on the wall.

But he’s also made sure it’s not too contrived. Out in the driveway, there’s a peeling Deadsy sticker on his Land Rover, which is still covered with dust and mud from the Palm Springs trip.

Some part of Barry is a little worried about how the interview will go - what they’ll ask him; what he’ll say. But he’s pretty confident that the retro hipness of his pad and a pitcher of lemongrass martinis will take the edge off any questions they might ask about how much, how long, and why.

And anyway, it’s not his job to teach Lincecum the ropes.

 **10**

Tim’s truck has old-style headlights, meaning there’s no warning beep if you forget to turn them off. Unused to San Francisco’s daytime fogs, Tim’s already killed the battery so many times that he’s put a post-it on the dash that says LIGHTS OUT MORON.

The reminder, though, winds up making him think more about pitching than about truck lights, and eventually he stops paying attention to it. So he shouldn’t be surprised when, one evening, he opens the door and the dome light’s off. Tim doesn’t need to turn the key in the ignition to know the battery’s dead. He slams the door and smacks the fender with his glove hand. Fuck. It’s seven-thirty - he did some extra work after practice - and everyone’s gone.

He flips open his cell and calls Triple A. There’s a pileup on the Bay Bridge and it’ll be at least an hour and a half before they can get someone out.

To cap it all off, it's started to rain.

Tim’s leaning against the truck, considering where to go for a beer, when the automatic gate lets in a red Mercedes that pulls up crosswise. The tinted window scrolls down.

\- Barry, says Tim. - Hey.  
Jesus fuck, he thinks to himself. Of all the guys.  
\- Dead battery? Zito asks.  
\- Yeah, says Tim. - Triple A’s coming but they won’t be here till nine.  
\- You got jumper cables in the back of that thing? asks Zito.  
Tim shakes his head.  
\- C’mon, says Zito. - I’ll buy you dinner. We’ll get you back here by nine.

The way he says this makes Tim feel like he’s about fourteen.

Zito’s car door closes behind him with the hydraulic whoosh of an airplane hatch, and the seats have the fresh-tobacco smell of new leather. Tim’s hair’s still wet from his shower. Feeling self-conscious, he avoids leaning up against the headrest.

Zito turns down the R&B he’s been blasting and suddenly it’s quiet enough to talk. Tim promptly turns it back up, louder.

\- Sushi sound good? shouts Zito over the racket. - I know a place in the Marina.  
\- Fuck no, Tim hollers, a look of disgust on his face. - I don't eat bait.  
Zito smiles and shakes his head. - Then what? he roars.  
– There’s a taqueria over in the Western Addition. On Divisadero, Tim yells back.

Zito’ll hate it, Tim thinks to himself, smiling a little - he’ll think it’s slumming.

As they pass the lit-up facade of City Hall, the skies open and it starts to pour.

Zito seems comfortable just driving. Tim’s lulled by the slap of the wipers and he’s pleasantly tired, starting to enjoy the rhythm of the music and the surge of post-workout endorphins flooding through his body. He settles his shoulders back against the seat and stretches his arms, pressing his interlaced fingers against the car’s ostrich-leather roof.

From the corner of his eye he knows Zito’s looking at him, and he keeps his eyes straight ahead.

//

The taqueria has a hand-painted mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe and an old-fashioned high tin ceiling, but it’s not much more than a takeout place. The three plastic tables in the front are overhung by potted ficus trees that have dropped most of their leaves.

\- Order for me, will you? says Barry, handing Tim a couple of twenties.

They got pretty soaked running in from the car. Zito snags a handful of paper napkins and uses them to blot the raindrops off his leather jacket. He raises his eyebrows at the proprietor to signal him, and grabs a couple of Negro Modelos from the cooler.

As he makes his way over to one of the tables, he’s waylaid by two guys in painters’ clothes, waiting for their takeout orders, who recognize him and ask for autographs. Zito obliges, signing their menus. When Tim glances back, he’s joking around with the men as though they’re old buddies.

At the counter, Tim orders himself a carnitas burrito. For Zito, there’s a minor mountain of food: four pupusas with fermented cabbage, three tacos made with brains and tongue, and a corn-smut quesadilla. In honor of the team, he also orders Zito a “Los Gigantes” special - black beans and orange sweet-potato fries that Tim drizzles liberally with habanero vinegar.

Tim chats with the cooks while they put the order together. The tray, when it’s ready, is jammed - way too many little plates for the table where Zito’s sitting.

Zito’s unfazed. He pulls over an extra table and lays everything out, including fresh napkins and lime wedges, as though he’s playing solitaire.

\- So what is all this?

\- I thought I’d get you some stuff you maybe hadn’t tried before, says Lincecum.

Zito picks up a pupusa, dripping with cabbage and melted lard and lime juice, and takes a big bite.

\- Fucking fantastic, says Barry. What is this?

Lincecum raises his eyebrows. - I think it’s Salvadoran or something.

While Tim picks at his burrito, he watches as Zito finishes every bit of the food, polishing off the pupusas, all three tacos, the black beans, the quesadilla with its smelly grey bits of huitlacoche, the incendiary french fries. Plus the end of Tim’s burrito and his pico de gallo. And both beers - Tim’s had a coke.

After he finishes, Zito goes over to compliment the cooks on the “Los Gigantes” special and they wrap him up one to go, on the house.

When the two of them leave, the line of customers and the staff howl them out the door with shouts of _Viva Gigantes!_ The cash-register lady is holding an autographed menu to her chest and smiling like crazy.

It’s finally stopped raining.

\- I think you’re pretty fucking boring, says Zito, as they slide back into the car.  
\- What?  
\- A carnitas burrito? A coke? Not very adventurous, says Barry.

When Zito drops him back at his truck, Tim’s almost sorry to see him go. He doesn’t realize until later he’s forgotten to give Zito his change. He wraps the bills around the coins and puts the bindle in the back pocket of his jeans.

//

 **June 8, 2007**

Zito’s Marina condo, a three-story converted Victorian so old it must have survived both big quakes, looks out and sideways toward the bridge. When there’s sun, you can sit out on the terrace with a macchiato and an almond croissant, screened by a enormous creeper of orange trumpet-vine, and watch the people below.

The bottom floor’s set up for a permanent party. It’s a meandering series of high-ceilinged rooms linked by a narrow central hallway; the lighting is amber and gold and flatteringly indirect. There are cabretta leather sectionals and high-tech Italian chairs, and cashmere throws to forestall the grey San Francisco chill that creeps right through the windows. There’s a good ratio of soft carpet to highly polished oak floor, and the little half-baths off the hall ensure that private business never takes anyone too far away from the center of the action.

Zito’s settled comfortably into the role of host, taking care of little problems as they arise. For example, since everyone knows it’s impossible to park in the Marina, Barry’s reserved half the spaces in a nearby private garage for the use of his guests. And then there's his housekeeper Maricela, who appears miraculously when she’s needed and disappears with equal alacrity when she’s not.

He likes to keep things simple, having become convinced that too much is basically just, well, too much. Tonight the drinks have been Veuve Cliquot and mojitos with fresh mint from the terrace. To eat, there were Roman-style baby artichokes deep-fried in olive oil and Shinnecock oysters from Long Island.

It’s not his fault that the party was over by midnight. Saturday day-games, with their eight-thirty a.m. ballpark call, have a way of putting a damper on Friday-night festivities.

He’s standing at the computerized control panel in the entryway, arming the alarm and turning down the lights in the three different sections of the first floor, when he becomes aware of a pair of stockinged feet, crossed at the ankles, propped on the arm of one of the couches.

By feel in the half-darkness, he makes his way across the hall to figure out whose feet those are.

//

One mojito had been enough. The taste of rum reminded Tim of college drinking games, games that’d ended with his arms around the toilet.

And it'd been a bitchingly long day - they’d lost the first game of the series to Oakland. Boch had taken both him and Bengie out in a double-switch in the fifth, and Shannon Stewart had gotten a two-run homer in the tenth. Fucking train wreck. Two guys injured, Boch was running out of guys to play, and by the tenth inning everyone just wanted a mercy-killing.

Until he’d gotten to the party, Tim hadn’t realized how tired he was. And the blunts they’d smoked, some incredibly stony stuff of Zito’s, had carried him off away from the game talk, and he’d practically pissed himself laughing at Noah Lowry telling long jokes with punch lines he was too stoned to remember.

//

The feet in the orange-and-black striped socks belong to Lincecum, who’s partly stretched out and partly curled up on the couch, like a kid, asleep. One arm’s across his forehead, the other wrapped around a kilim pillow on his stomach.

Zito plunks down in front of the couch. He can’t resist: he reaches up and scrapes the tip of his fingernail along the arch of Tim’s foot, first once, then again. Tim stirs and his eyes come open. Instead of being surprised, though, he grins at Zito and stretches both of his arms up, rotating his wrists and spreading his fingers in the air.

\- What the fuck are you doing here, says Tim, yawning and smiling. - Get outta my junk.  
\- Sorry to wake you, big guy, but you’re pitching today, says Zito.  
\- What about my pitching today, says Lincecum, scowling, missing the joke entirely. - I went five-and-dive. It was ugly. You know.

He rolls onto his side, facing Zito, and pulls one knee up to his chest.

\- Hand me that? he asks Zito, pointing at a throw draped over the opposite arm of the long couch. Zito obliges and Tim pulls the woollen comforter up and over himself. His eyes are half-closed, his skin flushed.

\- Make yourself entirely at home, says Barry, rising to his knees and snagging two empty glasses from the coffee table.

\- Wait, says Lincecum, who sits up abruptly and rummages in his jeans pocket.

Zito sighs. It’s past one, and he also has to be at the park at eight-thirty tomorrow. He’s starting against his old team, the A’s, and for the first time he’s facing his oldest best buddy, Dan Haren. This party was supposed to keep him from thinking too hard about it.

\- Your change. From the taqueria the other night, says Lincecum.

When Zito doesn’t respond, Tim takes Barry’s left hand in his right and closes it around the carefully folded square of bills that’s heavy with coins. It takes Barry a minute, but when he figures it out, he has to smile.

//

 **June 9, 2007**

The best way to get rid of the reporters, Zito knows, is to give them sound bites, so after he gives up five runs and Bochy pulls him in the seventh, he lets the rest of the game blur while he decides which cliches he’ll throw at Jenkins and Schulman in the postgame interview.

Sitting next to his locker after the game, the reporters’ lights and microphones bristling in his face, he ends up delivering the cliches more accurately than he threw his curve or his fastball earlier in the afternoon.

\- You’re gonna go out there next time and fuckin’ _dominate_ ‘em, says Lincecum in an exaggeratedly deep voice, laughing. He’s all too familiar with the speech in which the pitcher needs to be repentant-yet-defiant-about-taking-the-loss.

They’re having a couple of beers at a dive in Hunter’s Point, in the shadow of Candlestick Park. Zito feels OK right now, but he knows that later he’ll want to smash things.

\- Yeah, Haren called me after the game, says Zito, - but I wasn’t having that shit, I turned my phone off.

Danny, he thinks to himself. I hardly knew ya. Fuck. This game was the most brutal of Zito’s life, the walk from the mound to the dugout his longest ever.

Lincecum doesn’t say anything, and Zito likes him for that.

//

Tim’s never seen the old ballpark up close; he’s too young and too not-from-the-Bay-Area ever to have gone to a Giants game there. So Zito drives him out to Candlestick and they sit in the empty parking lot, cracked and weed-choked now that it’s not football season. The observation towers make the place look like a minimum-security prison, and shreds of colored paper from last night’s fireworks are blowing around the concrete.

They get out of the car and Lincecum leans against it, wrapping his sweatshirt more tightly around himself. The wind, which never leaves this place, slithers down their collars and burns streams of tears from their eyes.

\- Fans used to die of exposure here, shouts Zito. - You wanna hear some of the stories?

Zito’s not sure what comes first, the warm hand on his neck or the sea-green eyes, larger than he’d expected, so close to his face.

\- I just want you to know, says Tim, - that I’m not drunk.

He reaches up, now, both hands warm on Barry’s neck, and pulls him in, his mouth soft and hot and wet. The green eyes are wide open, looking straight into his, and as their mouths slowly find each other’s shapes, Barry lets himself breathe for the first time since they left the clubhouse. Tim tastes like afternoon, and he smells like cooked sugar, and he uses his roughened fingers to smooth away the tears the wind’s blown all the way back to Barry’s ears.

 **11**

As they drive back to where Tim’s truck is still parked at AT&T, through the exhausted projects of Bayview and along the industrial Third Street corridor, they’re both silent. Tim’s grateful that Zito’s turned up the stereo and they’re letting Bassnectar, some awful dubstep shit Wilson’s given him, blast them into near-oblivion.

You can’t just kiss someone in a parking lot, Tim reflects, and then go back to being your regular self. It’s like kicking in a door, and then trying to lock it behind yourself later. When the doorjamb’s in splinters, you’re kidding yourself if you think you can stay there, be safe there, tonight.

Yeah, there’s a part of him that was going _yes_ and _oh god_ and _don’t stop_ \- the part of him that hasn’t gotten laid since he left Seattle. So much for the hot life of the big-leaguer, he thinks; except for bro-hugs and butt slaps, no one’s touched him since February.

The guys have been good, they’ve set him up with girls, but he’s just not into that scene. Drunk sex, and sneaking down hotel hallways in the middle of the night, and worst of all, waking up with a stranger. Doesn’t matter how horny he is, he needs to be able to wake up the next morning with whoever he’s fucked and actually want to have coffee with them. Or he would, if he was the kind of person who drank coffee. _Whatever._

The bottom line is that he’ll be twenty-three next week, and outside of baseball he has no life.

But he’s not ready for - shit, he’s not even really hot for - the hundred-and-twenty-six-million-dollar man. Tim may not be that experienced, but he’s got an instinct about what to stay clear of. And Zito’s totally red-lined, for reasons that are well-known even if they’re not really talked about, inside or outside the clubhouse.

So by the time they get to the players’ parking lot, Tim’s considering basically three options:

\- I’m sorry. I don't know what I was doing.  
\- Let’s just say this didn’t happen.  
\- Will you please come back to my place and fuck my brains out?

//

Zito keeps his eyes on the road. In the flashes of light from the streetlights, his face is mysteriously blank, as though he’s no more than relaxed, tired after a long day.

What Tim doesn’t realize is that Zito’s been kissed just as passionately before this, and by less likely people, in even less likely places. Tim might be surprised - and a little disappointed - to learn that, right now, Zito’s not thinking about him at all.

//

When Zito pulls into the parking lot and swerves neatly into the space next to his truck, Lincecum’s already got one hand on the door handle. But when he pulls up on it, nothing happens; the doors have locked automatically. He punches, frustrated, at the buttons on the armrest until he gets a click.

Zito reaches over and touches his shoulder, a gesture that’s nothing more than friendly.

\- Thanks, Barry says.  
\- For what? says Tim, too quickly. He wishes he could take it back.  
\- I’m not sure, says Zito. - Does it matter?

Barry sighs. He puts his hands to his face and rubs his eyes, and then his temples, as though trying to soothe a headache. He glances down reflectively for a moment, and then his eyes flicker up, and meet Tim’s.

And then, caught up in the same crazy impulse, they lean towards each other over the gearshift console. Barry’s hand reaches up to touch Tim’s neck, and their mouths meet again, and Zito slips his tongue between his lips, and it’s good, so good that Tim has to close his eyes. He’s reveling in how it feels, the longing coursing through him, but he’s also afraid. Afraid of what he might see in Barry’s eyes; afraid of losing himself in this feeling he doesn’t trust at all.

//

It's a five-minute drive to Tim's place in Potrero Hill. It's a studio over a corner mom-and-pop store, month-to-month till he finds something permanent. What's San Francisco about it is that somebody’s painted a psychedelic blue-mushroom-hallucination mural below the window. But the neighborhood, in the shade of both freeways, is old-fashioned and conservative, the kind of place where people bring their trash cans in promptly and wash the sidewalks twice a week.

As the rickety door slaps shut behind them, Tim flips the switch on the thermostat and tosses his gym bag on the floor. The big high-ceilinged room smells faintly of varnish and old cigarette smoke. The only light comes from a streetlight outside the uncurtained front window until Tim switches on a gooseneck lamp, head twisted up, on the floor next to the bed. The floors are bare wood, and cold seeps through the windows and under the door.

There’s a mattress, a blinking MacBook propped on top of a suitcase, and an alarm clock. Against the wall is a stack of cardboard boxes, their corners blunted from transit, still sealed with movers’ tape.

\- I haven’t been warm since I got to this fucking city, says Tim, tenting his hands and blowing into them.

And yet, with a single motion, he peels his shirt and sweatshirt over his head and tosses the bundle onto the floor.

Zito’s already taken off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. Now, as he struggles to work the leather of his belt free from the buckle - amazing, his hands are unsteady - Lincecum takes over, whipping the belt through the loops, shimmying Zito’s jeans from his hips, stripping off his oxford shirt. Then he runs his hands up Barry’s bare arms and, with his wet, hot mouth, kisses his collarbone, his throat, the corner of his jaw, just below his ear.

\- Your nose’s freezing, Barry murmurs, leaning into the warmth of Tim’s lips on his skin.

Barry’s head has been tilted back, his eyes half-closed in pleasure, so when Tim pulls away a little abruptly, he comes back to attention only reluctantly, running his tongue along his upper lip as he gazes, astonished, at the man in front of him.

Tim’s eyes are narrowed and Barry can hear his breath coming hard and fast. He’s naked from the waist up, and his skin’s goosefleshed with the cold, his nipples hard.

Zito takes Tim’s left hand in both of his and slowly unbuckles the leather band of his wristwatch. As Tim watches him, Zito slips the sterling rings from Tim’s index finger and thumb and drops them onto the pile of clothes they’ve shed.

Then, with a single movement, he tugs open the rivet fly of Tim’s jeans. He covers Tim’s mouth with his own and then eases both hands around Tim’s waist and under the elastic of his briefs to take into both hands the curve of that ass he’s been dreaming about. Tim leans his head back, arches his back and sucks in his breath. Together, hands touching, tongues intertwined, they slowly work Tim’s jeans and underwear down to the floor.

As the radiators finally begin to crank out some warmth, they collapse onto Tim’s bed, a rat’s nest of sheets and pillows that’s never been made. Tim reaches down to the foot of the bed for the duvet and pulls it up over them, but Barry kicks it aside.

Later, what Tim remembers about this night is how slowly it unfolds.

Tim’s on his back, and Barry, propped on an elbow, leans in to kiss him languorously, his tongue in Tim’s mouth following the rhythm of his hand, which skims over Tim’s body, stroking his skin, as though Barry is a blind man discovering the landscape of his lover’s body for the first time. Tim closes his eyes and swallows hard as every part of him - his thighs, his cock, his belly, his nipples, his throat - rises up to the feel of that touch.

 **12**

Like most guys his age, Tim has always assumed faster is better: pitch speed, reaction times, the express line, the left lane. Sex, too; it’s always been like someone was standing there clocking his velocity with a radar gun: _git ‘er done._ And shit, when you’re young, most of the time you _are_ being hurried up. If it’s not your girlfriend’s midnight curfew, it’s something else - a police flashlight, your roommate’s key in the door.

Zito, who gets them out with his curveball, has slow in his hands.

//

Tim reaches up to try to haul Barry down onto him, but Zito deftly parries, pressing both his shoulders back onto the bed, and for a second Tim wonders what he’s gotten himself into.

\- Wait, Zito says. - Not yet.

He kisses Tim slowly and deliberately on the mouth, but there’s no tongue; it’s though a part of him has vanished. Tim feels his own breath, coppery and dry, rise hot in his throat.

Tim’s eyes flicker open. In the faint light, he can see that Zito’s eyes are soft, unfocused, as though his mind’s either somewhere else - or completely here and now; impossible to tell which. The callused fingertips of his pitching hand are almost abrasive, like Tim’s own, strange and familiar at the same time.

Barry throws a leg over Tim, then, straddling him, bends down to use his mouth to explore the places he’s gone with his hands. Tim lets out a hiss of breath as he feels Zito’s lips travel over his neck and his chest. No place goes untouched, untasted. He shivers as he feels Zito’s warm mouth, the edges of his teeth, kissing his nipples, the insides of his arms, breathing in the musky scent of his armpits, the bowl-shaped hollows of his hipbones. Zito’s hands are in his hair, knotting and unspooling like the kneading of a cat.

Tim’s body is humming with desire, a pressure that spills outward from his pelvis and lights up the surface of his skin. It’s as though Zito’s touch has slowed time to the feel of _now, this_ around him. He becomes intensely aware of the cold smoothness of the cotton sheets bunched around his feet, the sharp shadows of the lamplight on the moldings. His own head against a pillow that smells of laundry soap, and of sleep. Zito’s skin and his breath, like something dark and familiar, the ground in the woods.

Feeling like he’s rising to the surface fighting for breath, Tim frees his own hands - Zito doesn’t slap them back this time - and runs them down Zito’s chest to the curve of his ass. He feels the hitch of pleasure in his belly, the soft moan, when he takes Zito’s cock in his left hand and begins to stroke him.

Then, in a moment of exquisite shock, Tim feels Zito’s hand on his own hard length. It feels so good that Tim can’t keep from moaning a little. He closes his eyes, thrusts his hips into the touch, crying _unh_ and _yes_ , terrified Zito will stop.

Blindly he lunges up, seeking, needing Zito’s mouth on his, and they both come that way, agonized, ecstatic, giving themselves up to the point of release.

//

Tim awakens to cottony grey light and the hiss of steam from one of the ancient radiators. It’s a minute before his eyes can focus. His gym bag’s still there on the floor, next to his pile of shed clothes. The alarm clock’s somehow come unplugged, so he crawls across the floor and snags his wristwatch. He has twenty-six minutes to get to the yard.

He pads over to the tiny kitchen, fixes himself a bowl of cereal, and takes it back to the mattress. He perches cross-legged on the corner of the bed, eating, hunched, the only sound in the room the clink of the spoon against the bowl.

When he turns his cellphone on, the only messages are from his dad and his brother Sean. As soon as he slams out the front door into the foggy morning, he turns it off.

//

 **June 13, 2007**

In the last game of the home series against Toronto, Tim’s paired with a rookie catcher who’s making his major-league debut after eleven-and-a-half years in the minors.

On the mound, Tim scuffs up the dirt next to the rubber to get it the way he likes. As he throws his warmup pitches, Tim sizes up Rodriguez. The catcher’s round as an apple, with a carefully trimmed goatee that suggests patience and precision. When Tim squints to loosen his eyes, Rodriguez’s mitt becomes the center of a series of circles, a good home-plate target.

But Tim's attention wanders to right field, where the colors of the crowd flicker like heat haze. For the past week, Tim’s been in a kind of stop-action blur, arrested by a changed sense of his body in time. Stuff he’s always taken for granted, like the finely tuned catapult motion of his delivery, has started to seem grotesque, unreal, like the free-fall of a person who’s thrown himself off a bridge.

All his life, Tim’s body has been three steps ahead of him, vaulting over parking meters for the sheer insane joy of it. In a few days he’ll be twenty-three, another mile down the track towards cortisone injections and Tommy John surgery. All for the hurling of a ball.

//

That afternoon, Tim throws hard. But his fastball’s up and his breaking stuff caroms off the mound at angles that Rodriguez can't block. The ball seems to have its own mind. After Bochy yanks him in the middle of the fourth, Tim stamps back to the dugout, where his teammates scatter, suddenly busy.

His ERA’s closing in on ten. He has yet to go more than five innings in a game.

Tim thinks about Fresno, what Chase said about the car dealership. He thinks about Venezuelan guys who’ve spent twelve years toiling in the minors, waiting for that big day. He doubts Rodriguez will be saving a copy of the _Chronicle_ ’s obituary for their game, where the headline is  _Rookie Train Wreck_.

//

 **June 14, 2007**

It’s a long flight to Boston, where the Giants are set to play at the Fenway for the first time in ninety-two years. Tim snags himself a bulkhead row, and as soon as the wheels go up, he pushes back the armrests and curls up across the seats to sleep. When they hit turbulence over the Rockies, one of the flight attendants checks his seatbelt. She pulls the blue fleece blanket up to his chin and tucks it around his back. He flinches a little under her touch, mumbling in his sleep.

She pauses at the row behind him, where Nate Schierholtz, Tim’s fellow rookie, is absorbed in a movie he’s watching on his laptop. Nate’s even greener than Tim - he’s hasn’t even been up from Fresno a week, and he starts in right field tomorrow.

\- How _old_ is he? she asks, tilting her head in the direction of Tim.

Nate, who can only half-hear her, pushes back his headphones. He leans forward, peers over the seat back, and sees it’s Lincecum sleeping.

\- Twenty-three, same as me, says Nate, grinning. - He just looks like a kid.

The flight attendant raises her eyebrows and shakes her head a little, smiling back at Nate.

\- He’s little but he’s fierce, Nate tells her. - You can put money on it, he’s the one of us you’re gonna remember.

//

 **June 15, 2007**

The first game of the Boston series is a train wreck too, ten to two, but it’s Barry Zito’s train wreck.

And since Zito’s hardly said a word to him for the past five days, Tim feels free not to give a fuck.

Besides, it’s his birthday and the Ritz-Carlton, which is all beige and tasteful and immaculate, makes Tim long for home. As if he had one. It’s not his dad’s place in Renton, where his old room’s become a baseball shrine and the empty kitchen reminds him of his mom. And it’s not the dusty studio he’s rented in San Francisco, where he’ll never unpack most of those boxes.

When you’re twenty-three, the remedy for all of this is pretty simple.

Proper birthday wastage, at a mahogany-paneled bar called Henry’s, involves drinks Tim doesn’t know the name of and so many teammates jammed around the table that they have to pull up an extra row of chairs. Tim sinks gratefully into the ball-busting and the dirty jokes and it’s not long before he finds himself dead happy just to be in the middle of the table.

By the small hours they’re so blazed that they’ve forgotten what city they’re in, and the guys who’re still there reluctantly herd themselves up and out into the warm June night. Four of them pile into one cab, Tim and Noah Lowry and Kevin Frandsen and Brian Wilson, and they rollick back to the Ritz-Carlton.

They jam themselves likewise into the elevator and hit twelve. When the elevator stops at the mezzanine floor and Barry Zito steps on, though, the atmosphere changes. Though the guys are still laughing, and Wilson’s poking Lowry in the ear, Zito’s notably quiet, and by the time they all get off at the twelfth, the guys spill out purposefully down the split corridor to their rooms.

Off to the left goes Wilson, who’s singing an old Curtis Mayfield song, with Lowry, who tries to shush him, pointing to his watch.

Tim and Zito both have rooms at the end of the right corridor, down by the ice machine. The last thing they hear is Wilson’s falsetto keening away in the other direction, _You just git on bo---arrrrrd._

Tim’s a few steps ahead of Zito, who doesn’t try to catch up. They make their way down the hall that way, neither together nor apart, and before Tim gets to his room, he’s already fumbling in his pocket for the keycard. Zito stops him, one hand on his arm.

\- Can I talk to you? says Zito.

\- No, says Lincecum, his jaw thrust forward, pushing the door open with his elbow.

Tim doesn’t look up, but he hears Zito let out a breath. By the time the door clicks shut behind Tim, Zito’s already gone.


End file.
